Losing weight in spite of myself.

I began this blog in February 2011 as a way to help me not quit trying to lose weight, and to learn a few things. It's been an interesting and powerful experience. It certainly confirms what I've long suspected--that although I am a genuinely happy cheery person in the main, I am NOT a happy cheery dieter. I DETEST losing weight. I resent being overweight in the first place and I am a virtuoso in the art of self-sabotage. And YET--I'm doing it! I'm fighting and kicking and EATING all the way down, but the weight is finally going down. The plan I was following in February was a half-baked one largely based on wishful thinking. I gained a little weight and decided to get real. I knew I couldn't just join weightwatchers or count calories or do any one plan and expect to be successful. I decided if I was going to bother to make the effort to lose weight I was going to throw everything I could think of at the problem. And so I do. My real "Day One" for this blog is April 1, 2011. I joined weight watchers, I joined caloriecount.com (awesome website), I read the blog losingweighteveryday.blogspot.com religiously, I keep this blog faithfully, I joined the health programs sponsored by my insurance, I use the principles from overeater's anonymous, I use my church's 12 step program as well, I subscribe--and use--Healthy Cooking Magazine.



The result of all this? Painfully slow progress (About 20 lbs in 10 months). But it IS progress and like the little engine that could I keep on trying in my rebellious way. I have no intention of quitting. This is by far the longest sustained weight loss effort I've ever made in my life. Successful I think, because for the first in my life I've done this MY way--which I've discovered, involves a lot of pizza and restaraunt food. I'm convinced this is the only way to lose weight. For me it must be MY way. For you it MUST be YOUR way. Not weight watcher's way, not your doctor's way, but YOUR way. Any plan or idea I use is only a tool.

The latest plan to lose weight my way began on Oct 29, 2013. It really is my own crazy plan. As you'll see if you read that post. I've implemented the best ideas of all sorts of eating plans and thrown out the scale. A couple of months in and I'm definitely healthier. I'm actually enjoying myself. I won't weigh until April 1, 2014, so I'll see then if this works the way I hope it will.

There is no magic weight loss bullet. But there IS a great deal of magic in the discovery of what I can happily live with (very different from what weight watchers tells me I can happily live with) and still have the body and health I want.

Good luck to all of us on this journey. It's quite a trip!







Monday, October 8, 2012

Mindful Hummus

Oh WOW WOW WOW!! I'm just back from the Nashville conference. If you ever get the chance stay at the Gaylord Opryland. I won't even try to describe it--other than to say it includes an indoor boat ride through the hotel. Go look it up and book your vacation--completely mindblowing.

Food-wise--all I can say is that I HOPE I'm moving through the IE process. We left on Wednesday and yes, on Sunday at the airport when everyone else ordered Wendy's, I went to the other deli and ordered the fruit and cheese tray and some pretzels and hummus and an 80 cal mango shake. VERY intuitive. I was junkfood and sugared OUT. (I say was because that was yesterday---today I'm perfectly ready to indulge again. The problem is that it take SOOO MUCH food to get me to that point! And even if I know I'm not eating intuitively, I usually can't stop so it doesn't seem to have any practical value. Case in point--went to the Grand ol Opry. We didn't have time to eat before we went, so we were stuck with concession food junk---beside, this was the Opry--my mind yells that this is a golden chance to splurge---Must say IE is helping with this--I did realize that it wasn't a splurge so much as just another night of eating what I wanted---Anyway, they had tempting bags of garlic-parmesan popcorn. I bought one. Blech. Did they pop it last week?? I think before IE I would have eaten it anyway. I had ZERO trouble not eating it and throwing the bag away after the program even though it was a waste of $4. I was able to see that whether or not I ate the popcorn, I would still have wasted $4. Good right? Yes!!! I ordered the hotdog and big pretzel I wanted instead. I knew I was more than done with the pretzel by the time I was 1/3 through. Did I stop? NO way! I ate the whole thing AND I ate the horrible cheese sauce it came with. Here's another IE moment--the vast conference dessert bar. I had exactly what I wanted--fruit, a cheery tart, a brownie tart, a "shot" of key lime pie, some other desserts I can't even remember and a flan--the flan was great--served plain in little bowls, you could then go to the topping bar--where i topped it with caramel, a heap of candied walnuts, dark chocolate shavings, real whipped cream and a cherry. True, I didn't touch the bananas flambe, the ice-cream or the peach cobbler, and I didn't have seconds on the other desserts--but it's hard to see virtue in that when I "intuitively" went back for TWO more bowls of loaded flan. I'd love to call this progress--but I don't know. With stuff like this I've always been at least somewhat intuitive, and maybe that's why I don't weight 400 pounds, but it's going to be hard to get to goal weight stuffing myself with flan and pretzels. Worse, one day I wasn't even hungry--but it was a chance to get away to eat at the opryland backstage grill. I had buffalo wings and fried green tomatoes--fantastic!! It was the best food of the whole conference. I wasn't hungry, but I'm glad I ate it. What on earth is my poor brain supposed to do with that????

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